July 2026 | Power

Abraham Lincoln famously said, Any man can withstand adversity; if you want to test his character, give him power. Power tends to corrupt, though it also may motivate and inspire us. We are happy to be given a small taste of power, and that power may in turn position us to better help others in the world. However, power carries many risks. As difficult as it may be to observe others abuse the power given them, at least we notice it. When it comes to our own self, we tend to justify or ignore our own misuse of power. Swami Sivananda reminds us that while we can understand the ego of a professional or a celebrity, a spiritual ego is unforgiveable. So also, with abuse of power. If we understand that power is an illusion, and a pitfall, we should certainly avoid seeking it.

Our real power can be understood in the moments we stop doubting ourselves and remember who we actually are. The strength that we have been searching for in others has been sitting quietly inside us all along.

 In this issue of Sivananda Yoga Sandesha we explore Power. We share Swami Sivananda’s words on Power, the story of Neelkantha, the blue-throated form of Lord Siva, articles on abuse of power and how power corrupts, and a reflection on the Illusion of Power by an anonymous member of our community. As usual, please feel free to reach out to us with your thoughts and feedback at: [email protected]

A building inauguration ceremony and Vastu Puja were conducted for Vishnu Kutir, across from the Netala Ashram, the celebrations continued the following day with a sacred Ganapati Homa. Eight new rooms for sadhana are now available and future activities are planned for the building.

International Day of Yoga was celebrated throughout our Ashrams and Centres in India as well as within the broader community: businesses, schools, local organisations. Please enjoy these photos from various locations including, in Trivandrum: Christ Nagar School and Mahalakshmi School, Sree Saraswathy Vidyalayam, Jawahar Navodaya School, and Chinthalaya School, Vivekananda Vidyalayam, as well as the Trivandrum Technopark, Office of the Chief Postmaster General, Kerala Postal Circle, Regional Offices of the National Highways Authority of India, Kerala, Sree Vivekananda Vidyalayam school, and Medicity Hospital. The local college, KICMA brought a group of students to the ashram, where the Common Yoga Protocol was practiced as a part of the AYUSH/YCB Yoga Sangam and 108 Sun Salutations were led in person and online along with a discussion of yoga for healthy ageing.

In Chennai: Sraddha School in Kotivakkam, Besant Nagar, Japanese family yoga, Andhra Mahilasabha, Adyar, RBI Headquarters, Anna Nagar, Adyar Women’s Club, Sivagami Puram Residents’ Association, Casagrand School, and a relaxing sound healing session in collaboration with Daisy’s Soul Space.

In Delhi, programmes were held at both the Nataraja and Dwarka Centres, and, in Gurugram at the Power Grid Corporation.

For the first time, programmes were held at the Gangotri temple premises.

Professor Dacher Keltner of University of California, Berkeley explains the secret to gaining and keeping power: focus on the good of others. For twenty years his research has focused on how power is distributed in groups. He discovers that power is not grabbed but given to individuals by groups. Read more in these excellent articles:

How to Find Your Power and Avoid Abusing It:

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_find_your_power_avoid_abusing_it

Does Power Corrupt Everyone Equally:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/does_power_corrupt_everyone_equally

July 10 – Ekadasi|
July 14 – Master’s Mahasamadhi
July 14 – New Moon
July 25 – Ekadasi
July 29 – Full Moon
July 29 – Guru Poornima

Every age has sought power. Kings have pursued it through conquest, scholars through knowledge, ascetics through austerity, and seekers through spiritual discipline. Yet the Puranas invite us to look beyond these familiar expressions of strength. They ask a quieter, more enduring question: what kind of power has the capacity to protect the world?

The answer is found in one of the most profound episodes of our sacred tradition; the Samudra Manthana, the churning of the cosmic ocean.

When the devas and the asuras joined hands to churn the Kshira Sagara in search of amrita, the nectar of immortality, they anticipated celestial treasures emerging from its depths. Instead, the first offering of the ocean was Halahala; a poison so virulent that its very presence threatened the existence of all creation. The heavens trembled, the earth faltered, and even the gods stood helpless before its devastating force.

It was then that all eyes turned towards Lord Shiva.

The tradition tells us that Shiva accepted the poison out of boundless compassion for all beings. Yet he neither rejected it nor allowed it to descend into his heart. The poison remained suspended in his throat, which turned a radiant blue, and from that moment He came to be known as Neelkantha; the blue-throated one.

At this point, the great devotee Pushpadanta offers a remarkable reflection in the Shiva Mahimna Stotra:

अखण्डब्रह्माण्डक्षयचकितदेवासुरकृपा-
विधेयस्यासीद्यस्त्रिनयन विषं संहृतवतः ।
स कल्माषः कण्ठे तव न कुरुते न श्रियमहो
विकारोऽपि श्लाघ्यो भुवनभयभङ्गव्यसनिनः ॥

“O Three-Eyed Lord! When gods and demons trembled before the destruction of the universe, you accepted the deadly poison out of compassion for all beings. The dark mark upon your throat is no blemish; it is your ornament. Even what appears to be a stain becomes glorious in one who is devoted to freeing the world from fear.”

Pushpadanta overturns our ordinary understanding of greatness. The blue throat is not remembered as a wound but as an ornament. What appears to be a mark of suffering becomes the very symbol of divine compassion.

The question that has always fascinated me is not why Shiva accepted the poison; compassion has always been intrinsic to his nature. The deeper question is: why could only Shiva receive it?

Perhaps because there was nothing within him for the poison to conquer.

The devas still sought the rewards of heaven; the asuras craved dominion over the worlds. Wherever desire remains, vulnerability follows. Whatever we cling to can be threatened. Shiva alone stands beyond possession. He has no throne to defend, no ambition to fulfil, no identity to preserve. Established in perfect stillness, he is complete in himself. Only such a being can receive the poison of the world without fear of being diminished by it.

Yet another mystery would be, why did Shiva hold the poison in his throat?

He did not cast it back into creation, where it would have destroyed the world. Neither did he swallow it, allowing it to become part of his being. He contained it without allowing it to become part of his being.

Therein lies one of the deepest teachings on spiritual power.

Every life encounters its own Halahala; grief, anger, humiliation, betrayal, or disappointment. Our instinct is often to throw that poison back into the world through resentment and harsh words, or to swallow it until it quietly hardens the heart. Neelkantha reveals another possibility: to hold suffering with such awareness that it neither spreads nor settles.

Perhaps this is the power the sages wished us to contemplate. Not the power to dominate, but the power to remain inwardly unshaken. Not the power to conquer another, but the power to ensure that the poison we encounter goes no further than ourselves.

Perhaps that is why Shiva is called Mahadeva. The greatest power is not the ability to overpower the world, but the capacity to ensure that the world’s poison finds its end within us rather than its continuation through us. That is the making of Neelkantha. And perhaps, that is the highest expression of power.

Even if we don’t realize it, most of us spend our lives in the pursuit of power. In our daily interactions with other people, when we don’t get our way, when things seem to be going off course, when we imagine a desired outcome and do our best to make it happen, partly what we want is control over our situation, and sometimes also control over other people’s behaviour. That’s just normal life. On a larger scale, when companies compete to dominate an industry or a nation arms itself against another nation, what is actually being chased beneath money or rank is power.

The tradition we come from talks about this power in different ways. The word Shakti itself means power. This is the capacity by which everything in the universe moves, thinks, or grows. Unfortunately, we look for Shakti in the wrong place, and so we can never catch her.

However, worldly success or the ability to shape one’s life doesn’t have to be something negative. The pursuit of prosperity, security, and the means to live effectively in the world is recognized by our tradition. This pursuit is called artha.

The problem begins when we start to believe that “I am powerful”. This identification with both the capacity to achieve results and the results themselves is ahamkara taking credit for the flowing power of Shakti. And it is a slippery downhill slope. On this path the ego will constantly seek more to feel secure and the pursuit of power becomes endless. The one who rules a village wants a city, and the one ruling the city wants the state. This unquenchable thirst is trishna.

According to Vedanta, one aspect of Shakti is the powerful energy that projects. Shakti manifests the world and animates it. However, another aspect of Shakti is to conceal. This is Maya or the belief that manifested reality is solid and permanent. So, when a person chases worldly power, they are also chasing the Goddess herself. However, this devotion is paid to the wrong address – the illusory aspect of Shakti.

An old metaphor describes this well. A lamp lights a room and believes the light shining from it is its own. But the lamp does nothing. The light appears because energy flows through the lamp, yet the lamp mistakes itself for the source of what simply passes through it. It is just a vessel. This is the exact shape of Maya.

The way beyond Maya is not to acquire more power, but to stop reaching outward and recognize that Shakti has always been flowing through us. This is the purpose of yoga.

Pravritti is the movement outward into grasping. Nivritti is the movement of return. The entirety of yogic practice exists to reverse this outward tendency — to turn our attention away from the world and back to the source from which all power flows.

This does not require worldly renunciation. A person can lead a household or even a nation and still turn inward, as long as the motivation to act is no longer fed by the ego. It requires stepping back and letting Shakti move through, dedicating the action to the divine, to Shakti without attachment to the outcome. The one without ego who has surrendered the self to the divine becomes a channel for power.

It sounds counterintuitive because we usually mistake control for power. But the true act of surrender, removes the only obstacle that ever stood between a person and the Shakti they had been chasing all along.

We need not travel anywhere to find this power. We need only stop insisting that the power is ours to claim. Vedanta recognises this as Truth. The light was shining all along. We were never separate from it.

Aham Brahmāsmi. I am that.

-by anonymous